Phillies Designate JC Ramirez for Assignment

The Phillies have designated JC Ramirez for assignment clearing up a roster spot for Chad Durbin. Ramirez was obtained along with Philliple Aumont and Tyson Gilies from Seattle for Cliff Lee. At the time Ramirez was the #18 prospect in the Mariners system and was coming off a High Desert induced bad season in Hi-A. He was added to the 40 man by the Mariners before the trade. After coming to the Phillies, Ramirez never really improved and stalled at AA before having some occasional success after a reliever conversion in 2012.

Ramirez has a low to mid 90s fastball with good sink, an inconsistent slider, and a below average change up. He has not really missed bats despite the fastball movement. He does have some upside as a sinker/slider middle reliever.

Since he was designated for assignment a team will have to claim him on waivers and add him to the 40 man roster. Ramirez is out of minor league options so any team that wishes to send him to the minors must DFA him and expose him to waivers. If he clears waivers Ramirez will likely be assigned to AAA where he will continue to see if he can have success out of the pen.

Overall this is not a move of great impact because Ramirez was unlikely to make the team out of spring training. There is still a chance for him to have some major league impact so it would be nice to see him clear waivers. This is the first of the players from the Cliff Lee deal to not make it as a Phillie (Aumont has pitched on the big league level already)

24 thoughts on “Phillies Designate JC Ramirez for Assignment”

One reason I see to hold Savery is that he has an option left, though he’s also had spurts in his career as a reliever better than anything JC has done, so it makes pretty good sense. JC would have had to be DFAed after spring training anyway.

He’s got a good arm, it wouldn’t surprise me if some other team found a spot for him on their 40 man. Someone else from the current 40 man roster will still need to go to free up a spot for a back up catcher. The team is supposedly still trying to find a veteran catcher to compete with Quintero to be the back up for the first 25 games. They’ll only sign someone to a minor league deal though so I don’t expect much. That means they won’t need to make a decision on the 40 man until the rosters are finalized and the rule 5 guy will be gone by then so i guess I answered my own question.

If they do add that guy he will be the easy DFA when Ruiz is added back to the roster at the end of his suspension. Ramirez is essentially a Rule 5 pick right now, except he does not have any benefit of stashing him for later. The easy cuts outside Inciarte are probably Savery and Robles, though it would not be a complete shock if they cut bait with Nix and kept Inciarte (essentially acknowledging that they are carrying so many OF defensive liabilities that need a late inning replacement).

Loss of development time which is big if you are trying to get Valle to carry spring training lessons into the season. With the early season schedule whoever is the back up catcher will likely only need to make a couple of starts (probably 3-4) over Ruiz’s 25 game suspension (you can justify overworking Kratz a little if he is going to be your back up the rest of the season). It just makes more sense to throw a sacrificial lamb in there to be there in case of emergency and have Valle go play in AAA. The hope being that there is at least upside there that Valle hits enough that you could justify calling him up if there was another injury (because of the 40 man spot I believe that come mid-season at least Valle is the emergency catcher regardless of his prospect status with relation to Rupp and Joseph (both of who will need 40 man spots at the end of the season).

Valle is going to have some difficulty getting full playing time in the minors in my opinion anyway. I see Joseph as the starter in AAA with Quintero backup, Rupp in AA with Lerud as backup. Certainly Valle and Joseph could split time at C and DH so they both get hitting time.

Due to that reason I could see benefit to Valle being with the Major Leaguers for a month, getting 7 or so starts with Kratz as a replacement for a few of them anyway. Valle will have Spring Training time with the vets, and can possible transistion that to learn from them for a month. If the Phillies could live the Sardihna’s extremely horrible bat for a month, they can live with Valle.

No, they need Nix believe it or not. They need a left handed pinch hitter since every closer is right handed. Nix knows what its like to be a bench guy also so that’s in his favor too. There’s no way they put Dom on the bench. If he’s up, he’s playing.

Ramirez has done little for the Phillies. He could possibly pitch in the majors since he still seems the throw hard enough. He is not too old but I’ll be curious if Phillies even take him back with all the relievers they have in system.

Joseph mentioned as likely to begin the season in AAA. I believe that they have not seen enough of him in AA to justify the jump right away to AAA. Valle is the obvious one to get the AAA assignment since he’s already there. Getting Joseph’s catching tools refined plus having him find his batting abilities would be the necessities before he sees AAA from the dugout.

In the meantime, Valle would have the opportunity to get himself in a better position via work on his contact rate and improved judgment of the strike zone. Should that happen, Valle would become a very viable piece for a deadline deal/trade IF the team is in fair contention. Or even with a ’13-14 off-season deal. Then, hopefully, Joseph will have answered the call for his “refinement” and we’d be in a good position at catcher (with a couple more making progress behind them).

I thought JC Ramirez had made some progress in his new role as a reliever. He had onlybeen converted from a rotation guy to the bullpen in 2012 Spring Training. That and the mid-season promotion he earned to move from AA – Reading to AAA – Lehigh Valley makes his release by the Phillies even more surprising.